Rather than draw up a plan for the 2008 hurricane season, there are some of you out there who have chosen to hope that no hurricane comes our way.

Last week, one of the nation's foremost hurricane researchers, William Gray at Colorado State University, predicted that there will be 15 named storms in the Atlantic in 2008. He said, too, that there is a better than average chance that at least one major hurricane will make landfall in the United States.

But you have hope. You remind yourself that two major hurricanes and a smaller one named Cindy hit around our parts in 2005 and that it could be another 40 years before anything bad happens here again.

Better yet, you remind yourself that not a single storm hit the Unites States in 2006 and only one, Humberto, hit the mainland in 2007. So later with all that "Be prepared" stuff. What are you supposed to be, some kind of Boy Scout?

Actually, you are supposed to be the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which means that responding to emergencies is your reason for existence. However, a major weather catastrophe in 2008 that displaces a large number of people will likely find you unprepared.

The formaldehyde-laden FEMA trailer seems to have been retired, which is good news to all those who think FEMA should shelter storm victims and not preserve them for future research.

But what's going to stand in its place? Here we are almost three years after Hurricane Katrina, and all FEMA can do is shrug -- and, one presumes, hope an answer won't be necessary this year.

Hoping for the best does not constitute a plan. It wouldn't constitute such for an individual or family, and it certainly doesn't constitute a plan for a federal bureaucracy given the awesome task of helping Americans recover from catastrophes.

Hurricanes aren't the only likely catastrophes. FEMA responds to massive events such as earthquakes and wildfires, too.

The agency is tossing around ideas -- some that seem more innovative than practical -- but hasn't settled upon a design that can both be put into commerce quickly and satisfy the local jurisdictions that will have to host them.